


Even a Tool

by waterscroll



Category: Hakuouki
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/M, First Time, Introspection, Power Dynamics, Sanan route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-07 20:43:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19857739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterscroll/pseuds/waterscroll
Summary: Sanan is caught between Yukimuras, father and daughter, and each have reshaped him in a different way.  Sanan/Chizuru, set towards the end of the Sanan route, between the first kiss and the last battle.





	Even a Tool

**Author's Note:**

> I loved the Sanan route but wanted to see them working together more in the last arc. So, here they do. Well, sort of. It's a complicated relationship but I find it fascinating.

The night after their first kiss passed quickly, and at dawn, once Sanan was in bed, he saw Chizuru at his door. He was expecting her, he supposed, she was never one to wait quietly or with any patience. She disrobed quickly and he watched the outlines of her body in the sunlight. Then she lay down beside him in his bed.

There were rituals to be observed, Sanan knew, and he was entirely unfamiliar with them. Perhaps they didn’t matter. He had pledged his body to her, she had a right to claim it. “I don’t suppose you want to get married first?” he asked. “We could do that if you want.” It came out with a laugh that he hadn’t intended and it sounded like he was joking. Sanan flailed for someplace to put his hand that wasn’t Chizuru’s naked body and it landed in her hair. Chizuru was giggling, and blushing furiously, with an affect of shyness entirely inconsistent with any of her behavior.

“I want to stay,” she said. “Please, let me stay.” He could see the struggle with which the words formed on her lips. She wasn’t raised to admit to wanting a man’s touch. Girls of Chizuru’s class weren’t. But, Chizuru wouldn’t have been raised to want anything. Her father must have tried to form her as a tool in his ambitions. Her curiosity, her initiative were nothing to Kodo Yukimura.

Even a tool can find its own purposes. Sanan would know.

While he hesitated, she stuck out her tongue and licked him, at the base of his neck, and Sanan let out a low gasp. “I mean you like tasting me and I just wanted to see…what it was like…to taste you…” Chizuru stammered out the words and yes, that was enough, that was enough of a reason. His body was cracked and broken but Chizuru eagerly devoured its taste, finding her way among his cracks and crevasses. Chizuru herself was a banquet of tastes, from the inside of her mouth to the tang of the sweat under her breasts and at last the sweet musk between her legs, its sweetness only matched by her cries when he tasted her there.

In the end it was small motions with which he took her virginity and at the same moment surrendered his own. Small, but she seemed to enjoy them. Small and so significant. Once, when Sanan was young and the kind of Buddhist who didn’t kill people, he had taken a vow of lifelong celibacy. He hadn’t expected to keep it, but as it turned out he kept it for the entirety of his life.

The day passed, while the fortress slept. In the evening the bell rang to call Sanan like a dog to his master. His apprenticeship with Kodo Yukimura was by no means worth the price he had paid for it, but there were things that Sanan was learning. Each new ingredient changed the serum only a little, but it perhaps would be enough to make a difference. At least there were faint hints that it might. It wasn’t that there were no ways of improving Fury lifespan or health. But that hadn’t been the goal of Kodo Yukimura’s research. The newest generation of Furies could fight in the daytime and kill with greater strength. Their sanity, or their long-term survival, had not been a priority to those who made them.

When the night’s experiments were completed they sat to talk. “You have gained my daughter’s trust, I see,” Kodo said. “That is good. Her blood will give strength to the Furies, like it has to you.” Sanan thought of Chizuru imprisoned, her blood taken to feed an army crazed with violence. He thought of the taste of Chizuru’s arm split under his tongue.

When Sanan returned later to his own laboratory Chizuru was there, flipping through old books in Dutch. Of course she was. There was nothing of his that he could keep her from, not his bed or his body or his most dangerous missions or, apparently, his research. She looked up and smiled eagerly, eyes roaming over his body, obvious hunger in her gaze. Sanan thought it would please him but instead he was struck by a sudden wave of revulsion, in that moment feeling done with Yukimuras, both father and daughter. Both had reshaped his body for their purposes, his veins ran with Kodo’s serum and Chizuru’s blood and they were all that kept him alive.

“Are you ok?” Chizuru asked. “Do you need blood?” It was so ridiculously the wrong thing to say at that moment that Sanan couldn’t help but laugh and in that laughter there was relief. He was an experiment on the verge of failure, but he purposes for which Chizuru was remaking him were ultimately not cruel. Even a tool can choose its maker, sometimes.

“I need nothing but you,” Sanan said, willing it to be the case.

When Chizuru came to his bed that dawn Sanan flipped her over and pinned her arms over her head, wanting in some small, symbolic way to assert some power in the situation. She immediately relaxed under his touch, opening up to him like the finest flower. Well, then. He was glad to give her pleasure, glad that his body could please her. He set to the task willingly. His body belonged to her, he was glad that she found its use pleasurable.

At dusk when he reached for her yet again the bed was empty. He knew better than to worry, Chizuru could take care of herself and would return when she saw fit. Still, he missed her. It was a new feeling, wanting a presence by his side upon waking. He’d have to get used to it, since he literally could not survive without her. There was a sweetness to it, and to the memory of her taste.

Sanan’s nighttime tasks led him to the Shinsengumi Furies. Every single one of them had taken the serum on his orders. They were his people, that he had made, and for whom he was responsible, and for whom he had come here to find their last hope. He had a new medicine to give them, although he didn’t think it would make that much of a difference. But before he could even place it in their hands, one Fury spoke his name. Then another spoke his rank: Colonel. They knew who he was. He hadn’t expected that. It hadn’t happened before.

The serum had seemed so merciful, once, when first Sanan had allowed himself to take it. It had felt like hope. Hope, he had learned, was foolish, dangerous, mad, and as compelling as Chizuru’s taste on his lips.

He went back to his laboratory, certain he’d find her there. “You gave them blood,” he said. He hadn’t meant to sound harsh, but Chizuru flinched. Did she imagine he was jealous? She in no sense belonged to him and the thought made him nauseous. “If you wanted to, I’m glad you did,” he said, and saw her begin to relax.

“Father thought it would help,” Chizuru said, “and I thought…” her words trailed off.

“It did help,” Sanan said. It had helped in ways her father couldn’t imagine. He couldn’t tell her more, but she’d know soon. The last battle would be tomorrow. “I need you to trust me a little bit longer. But what you did made a difference. You’ll see.”

It was a reasonable enough thing to do. Chizuru had read her father's notes in the course of their work together. Perhaps she'd figured out her father's plan and the way he intended to use her blood. Certainly Chizuru would have seen the effect her blood had on Sanan. She'd have seen his body remade. 

Sanan felt the contours of his work shift around him. Sometimes even a tool can choose its own purposes. Chizuru was made by her father to give blood to the Furies, and she would do it, but on her own terms. The Shinsengumi Furies would be transformed by Chizuru’s blood. They would become the new Yukimura clan, as remade by her as Sanan was himself.

Chizuru will make a fine scientist, Sanan thought, with her determination to know and to try. He imagined her old, in her own laboratory, where she’d discover things that heal people. Then she’d emerge to govern her clan with kindness. Sanan wanted to live to see it. In that moment he thought perhaps that he could.

“Come to bed with me,” he said, his voice rough, sounding completely unlike himself. He felt nothing like himself, but Chizuru smiled and Sanan knew that he was whole. He felt a hunger for her that was nothing like bloodlust. All he wanted was to bury himself inside Chizuru and feel her come apart around him. He wanted to enjoy her in the time that was left to him, and hoped that time would be long. He belonged to her and to the purposes that they would accomplish together. She came to him, running, and he welcomed her into his arms.


End file.
